| Author | Message | ||
     Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
A new book has just come out: 9780713998269%2C00.html,http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,97807139 98269,00.html Deceit and Self-Deception Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others » Robert Trivers Allen Lane Hardback : 06 Oct 2011 Concerns also the (mis-?) 'confidence' implicit in world economy and politics. The underpinning that the world's self-deception provides for human being-racism - as a good or bad force? Individual people necessarily in denial ... And, for me, the Internet itself (and its inhabitants) as the central force that now underpins all these machinations of self, Proustian selves, and survival / natural selection. - again for good or ill? Books themselves now surviving as non-tree hypertext...but killing the centuries-old treebook version in the process. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
Sorry, that link doesn't work. Hopefully, this does: http://tinyurl.com/3v3h5fh | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 82.6.90.110 |
Individually, self-deception is part of our survival mechanism, it is the camouflage we hide behind. On a mass scale however, it is more interesting. The Tea Party mentality for example, this denial that capitalism is massively flawed and that some form of state intervention and control (not in the Orwellian sense, I hasten to add, I'm talking about benign control; the NHS, the welfare system, state education etc) is tantamount to communism or Satan’s own government system. Their delusion is blind and flies in the face of the fact that the raw capitalism they have orgasms over has kicked them into the gutter and ruthlessly ripped away their livelihoods by sending their jobs abroad to be carried out by virtual slave labour. And yet, somehow, this treachery, slave labour and massive gulf between rich and poor are "Christian" and moral and right (and Right). I know I'm being specific here, but for me it is the current Big Delusion. Cheers Terry - a self-deluding scribbler who thinks he’s a writer… | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
Marion Arnott (author of 'Prussian Snowdrops') has a major take on this, I feel, on the current 'Big Brother' thread: http://ttapress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=21586#21586 | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I's rather stab my eyes out with a mushroom than read a thread about Big Brother, Des. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
LOL. (my grandmother used to have a wooden mushroom for darning things on). | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I love those. Wooden mushrooms, that is. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
darn the thread! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
I have now got a copy of the book below. It looks very good. ========== A new book has just come out: http://tinyurl.com/3v3h5fh Deceit and Self-Deception Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others » Robert Trivers Allen Lane Hardback : 06 Oct 2011 | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
From the books' preface: ---------------- The time is ripe for a general theory of deceit and self-deception based on evolotionary logic, a theory that in principle applies to all species but with special force to our own. We are thoroughgoing liars, even to ourselves. Our most prized possession - language - not only strengethens our ability to lie but greatly extends its range. We can lie about events distant in space and time, the details and meaning of the behaviour of others, our innermost thoughts and desires and so on. But why, why self-deception? Why do we possess marvelous sense organs to detect information only to distort it after arrival? [...] It is a dark and opaque side to ourselves, one that we leave untreated at our own peril, but it is also a source of endless humour and amazement, so that we can also enjoy the subject as we suffer it. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
"Consider self-confidence, a personal variable that others can measure. It can be inflated to deceive them, with self-deception making the act more plausible. This feature probably extends far back in our animal past." | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.114.108 |
Did the author do his demonstrative case studies in the UK small press?  | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.123.56 |
But lies also impell us to accomplishments we would never achieve otherwise. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.114.108 |
I have an enormous willy. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
I should cocoa! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
"When people are asked to supply autobiographical accounts of being angered (victim) or angering someone else (perpetrator), a series of sharp differences emerges. The perpetrator usually describes angering someone else as meaningful and comprehensible, while victims tend to depict such an event as arbitrary, unnecessary, or incomprehensible. Victims often provide a long-term narrative , especially one emphasizing continuing harm and grievance, while perpetrators describe an arbitrary, isolated event with no lasting implications. One effect of this asymmetry between victim and perpetrator is that when the victim suppresses anger at a provocation, only to respond after an accummulation of slights, the perpetrator sees only the final, precipitating event and easily views the victim's angry response as an unwarranted overreaction." | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
Page 30: "The most important general principle is that deceiver and deceived are locked into a coevolutionary struggle. Since the interests of the two are alamost always contrary - what one gains by perpetrating a falsehood, the other loses by believing it - a struggle (over evolutionary time) takes place in which genetic improvements on one side favor improvements on the other. One key is that these effects are 'frequencey dependent' - deception fares well when rare and poorly when frequent. And detection of deception fares well when deception is frequent but not when it is rare. This means that deceiver and deceived are locked into a cyclic relationship, in the sense that neither can drive the other extinct. Over time the relative frequencies of deceiver and deceived oscillate, but they do so within bounds that prevent either from disappearing. Likewise, in a verbal species like our own, we will be warned about new tricks more often by others the more frequent the tricks become. Note that no role is exclusive to some and not others - all of us are both deceiver and deceived depending on context." -------------------- Seems like internet forum exchange to me!! | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
"When people are asked to supply autobiographical accounts of being angered (victim) or angering someone else (perpetrator), a series of sharp differences emerges. The perpetrator usually describes angering someone else as meaningful and comprehensible, while victims tend to depict such an event as arbitrary, unnecessary, or incomprehensible." Gary will know what it's called - my brain is fuddled at the moment and I can't remember the term for it - but there's a well-known research bias at work there. Herzberg was criticised for using that diary/autobiographical technique when he formulated his Two-Factor Theory of Motivation. Basically, if we're asked about something positive we've done/had happen to us, we tend to say it's because of our own efforts, whereas if we're asked about something negative, then it's somebody else's fault. That's a very basic explanation - I hope Gary or someone else knows what I'm talking about and can correct it/explain it better than I can at the moment! But it does sound like slightly flawed research that author is working with, Des. | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 204.15.2.82 |
I'm sooooo glad Gary has such confidence about the size of his willy that he's willing to share to with it us BUT . . . how do we know he is not deceiving us about the size of his um appendage? HOW do we find out IF Gary is deceiving us . Will photos be posted soon? If so, how can we guarantee they re genuine? Will we have to wait until we encounter Gary at some convention and confront him then and demand proof? (I'll let you all close your eyes and envision that yourselves). Or, shall we simply (a allow that Gary is lying and compliment him on the self confidence behind his deception (while praying he doesn't go public with it in the literal sense of the term)? b) accept Gary's claim as truth in the name of our co-evolutionary struggle?  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.114.108 |
Caroline, it's called the fundamental attribution error. Thomas, the only thing you need to measure is my partner's smile. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Gary, regarding that, what was that they used to call you? You know - when you would run all through the town, upstairs and downstairs in your nightgown? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
Page 53 "There is something called self-induced self-deception, in which the self-deceived person acts not for the benefit of self but for someone who is inducing the self-deception. This can be parent, partner, kin group, society, or whatever, and it is an extremely important factor in human life." | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
DIALOGUE - A Near-Death Experience "Who started this?" “I didn’t. I think it was you.” “Well, I can’t remember anything before you said you have been deceiving yourself your whole life.” “I can’t remember talking about self-deception. Didn’t you mention that you had started to love Johnny – for his sake, not yours?” “I don’t think that’s anything to do with self-deception.” “I do. You think you love Johnny only because he has got used to you loving him and your withdrawing it now would make you unhappy because it would make someone you once loved become very unhappy, so you have blotted out that you really have stopped loving him, and so you actually feel that you still love him as a consequence of something I can only call a subconsciously induced self-deception.” “Look at me, do I look like a liar?” "Well, no proper liar looks like a liar. I see a woman who has blonde curls turning slightly to grey, still pretty, and a personality that has made you my best friend since before... Well, I don’t think there was ever a time when you weren’t my best friend. Our mothers wheeled us side by side when we were babies, don’t forget. As far as I know, you have never lied. Except, that is, perhaps, those lies you tell yourself.” “Johnny was your boy friend first, don’t forget. Don’t you think there was some element of deceit on my part during that period of him leaving you for me?” “No. It was a natural process. I was never suited to Johnny, nor he to me. You did us both a favour.” “I haven’t told you this before. But I seduced Johnny. My intention was to steal him away from you. I had no idea you weren’t suited to each other....” “Really?” “Yes, really. I’m glad I’ve got it off my chest now. Perhaps you have deceived yourself that you weren’t suited to each other when you discovered he loved me more than he loved you. I’m sorry. Truly sorry.” “Why tell me now?” “I don’t know. And while we are on the subject. When we were in our pushchairs, parked next to each other on Market Hill outside Tesco, I stole your rattle.” “I don’t remember." “Perhaps because I was slightly older?” “Hmm.” “Old enough in fact to lean over and release the brake on the backwheel of the pushchair... Are you listening? ... But I didn’t actually release it, but only very nearly did. ........ Where’s Johnny?” | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
That's by me, btw. Today. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.114.108 |
I'd rather talk about todgers. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/a_tale_of_two_todgers.htm | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.56.86 |
in which the self-deceived person acts not for the benefit of self but for someone who is inducing the self-deception Surely if it comes from somewhere else it's deception, not self-deception? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
Someone else (consciously or unconsciously?) inducing one's self-deception (eg because you care (or think you care?) for them so much you have suppressed your own nature).??? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.56.86 |
In my view it's still deception, because the mechanism (in this case self-deception) is triggered from outside. The difference is subtle, but this sort of thing is not exceptional; we do it all the time, e.g. in a group context where some people might pretend their idea is someone else's (say a more popular group member's) just to get it accepted by the group. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
I have only started this book but I think it is agreeing with Hubert that self-deception is 'commonplace' but nobody has really written a book about it before or recognised 'self-deception' in themselves before? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
Page 62 "Can One half of the brain hide from the other? [...] Likewise, I have noticed that 'inadvertent' touching of women (that is, unconscious prior to the action) occurs exclusively with my left hand and comes as a surprise to my dominant left brain, which controls the right side of my body." | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.98.239 |
Page 115 "So far we have concerned ourselves with an individual's relationship to the outside world - his or her competitors, friends, mates, and family. How does success or failure in each of these relationships involve deceit and self-deception? What kinds of self-deception are special to each realm, and what are their costs? But there is also an inner world that has strong effects on the costs and benefits of self-deceptive behaviour (costs and benefits, as usual, are ultimately defined and measured by their effects on survival and reproduction). This inner world consists of very large numbers of parasites (which cause disease) - invading organisms bent on eating us from the inside - and a very complex immune system of our own arrayed against them." | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.131.175.228 |
On page 125, there is a section headed: WRITING ABOUT TRAUMA IMPROVES IMMUNE FUNCTION It is final proof, that writing Horror is a sort of self-deception that assists with your immune functions, and thus your health. |